Villanova to face Marquette in a Big East showdown, needs to stop Howard

MILWAUKEE, Wis. – Jay Wright may not like playing against a guard who can do as much as Marquette’s Markus Howard, but he certainly appreciates what makes him so good.

“He does everything,” the Villanova coach said in advance of Saturday’s showdown between the Big East’s top two teams – the 14th-ranked Wildcats (19-4, 10-0 conference, 11 consecutive wins) and the No. 10 Golden Eagles (19-4, 8-2) – at soldout Fiserv Forum.

“He’s got every aspect of the game. He’s got deep range. He’s got a mid-range game. He can get to the rim. He’s just complete, which I guess sounds boring, but when it’s true, you have every aspect of all the offensive skills, and that’s special.”

Howard, a 5-foot-11, 175-pound junior, leads the conference in scoring with a 24.6-point average. He’s also tops in made three-pointers (3.57 per game) and free-throw shooting (91.3 percent). He possesses unlimited range, an ability to get to the rim and a deadly stepback jumper.

Or as Wright sums up, “All the qualities of a great offensive player” – good off the dribble, moves well without the ball, finds the open man.

Villanova senior Phil Booth said Howard is effective with his scoring and working with his teammates.

“He does so much for them offensively, the way he can score, the way he can shoot it, the way he gets others involved,” Booth said. “He does a lot of great things for them, so just trying to make it difficult on him is going to be tough because he’s a great, great player.

Howard, strangely, has had his best games against Villanova away from the home of brats and beer. He poured in 37 points last season at the Wells Fargo Center, and had 21 points at the same venue the year before. He scored 23 points in a Big East tournament game last season.

However, in two games at the old Bradley Center, he went scoreless as a freshman, fouling out in seven minutes in a game where the Golden Eagles upset the then-No. 1 Wildcats, the only win in their last 13 games against Villanova. Last year, he shot 5 of 18 from the floor and scored 13 points in an 85-82 loss.

Howard isn’t the only offensive player to watch on Marquette. Brothers Sam and Joey Hauser each connect on better than 40 percent of their three-point attempts and are in the top five in the league in free-throw percentage.

A difference on the Golden Eagles this season is improved play at the defensive end. They lead the Big East in opponents’ field-goal and three-point percentage. Theo John, a 6-9 sophomore, has a league-leading 2.22 blocks per game.

The Wildcats are coming off a 66-59 overtime win Wednesday night over short-handed Creighton, a game where Wright felt his team was outplayed. But they managed to keep their winning streak alive even if they might have been tempted to look ahead to Saturday.

On the other hand, Marquette lost its last game, 70-69, on Tuesday at home to St. John’s, with Howard scoring 17 points on 5-of-17 shooting. Coach Steve Wojciechowski, however, didn’t think the Golden Eagles were looking ahead.

“I don’t think we prepared as well as we’re capable of,” he said, “but I don’t think that was the result of looking ahead to Villanova.”

Wojciechowski said he has much respect for the Villanova program, and particularly for its 1-2 punch of Phil Booth and Eric Paschall.

“In preparing for them, it’s not fun, but you’ve got to admire how well they’ve come along as a team and the job that Booth and Paschall have done as leaders,” he said. “It just jumps out of the page, and a lot of their younger guys are really stepping up for them now. It’s going to be a heck of a challenge for our program.”